Why MYSTERIES? Because that is the genre I read. Why PARADISE? Because that is where I live.
Among other things, this blog, the result of a 2008 New Year's resolution, will act as a record of books that I've read, and random thoughts.

Donna Leon has won heaps of critical praise and legions of fans for her
best-selling mystery series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, one of
contemporary crime fiction’s most beloved characters. Over twenty-one
books this sharp, kind-hearted native Venetian {??] has exposed read­ers to
contemporary Venice in all its aspects: its arts and architecture, food
and family life, but also its crime and insidious corruption. With The
Jewels of Paradise, Leon takes readers beyond the world of the Venetian
Questura in her first stand-alone novel.

Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them,
she’s had to leave home to pursue her career elsewhere, mostly abroad.
With a doctorate in baroque opera from Vienna, she lands
in Birmingham, England, as a research fellow and assistant
professor. Birmingham, however, is no Venice, so when she gets word of a
position back home, Caterina jumps at the opportunity.

The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked
trunks, believed to contain the papers of a once-famous, now largely
forgotten baroque composer, have been discovered. The composer was
deeply connected in religious and political circles, but he died
childless, and now two Venetian men, descendants of his cousins, each
claim inheritance. With rumors of a treasure, they aren’t about to share
the possible fortune. Caterina has been hired to attend the opening of
the trunks and examine any enclosed papers to discover the “testamentary
disposition” of the composer. But when her research takes her in
unexpected directions and a silent man follows her through the streets,
she begins to wonder just what secrets these trunks may hold. From a
masterful writer, The Jewels of Paradise is a superb novel, a grip­ping
tale of intrigue, music, history, and greed.

My Take

While there will be some who love this book, I'm afraid I am not one of them. I think I love the Guido Brunetti series (see my reviews below) too much.

THE JEWELS OF PARADISE felt a bit bloated to me. I couldn't fault the research and accepted that the author had a few things she needed to get off her chest, but there were times when I felt myself losing interest.

Part of (my) trouble is probably that it barely falls into the crime fiction category. Sure there is a possible murder that took place some 400 years ago when a prominent man simply disappeared, and then in the current setting there is some fraud and deception happening. But the author felt too compelled to give me the benefit of her research and I also got impatient with Caterina humming over baroque music in her head.

I found the final denouement barely satisfactory. I could understand why the "cousins" were interested in the possible treasure but couldn't get a handle on what the lawyer was trying to do. Although there is some irony at the end that made me chuckle. It tied in well with the discussion in the story about people seeing things differently because they are viewing them from different perspectives.

It is 3.30 a.m. The Sydney monorail performs its endless circuit like a
pale metal caterpillar - all for the benefit of one dead passenger.

Elsewhere in the city’s bleak midwinter, Darling Harbour buzzes to the
sound of 1,000 American lawyers attending an international conference.
And that means 1,000 opinions as to who killed their president. Two
bodies later, and the more Scobie Malone fillets the heart of the city’s
legal profession, the more he cuts into an intrigue of international
proportions....

My Take

#12 in Jon Cleary's Scobie Malone series, CID police procedurals set in Sydney, that reflect current events such as the building of the Sydney Opera House and the holding of the Sydney Olympics.

Against the background of an international conference for lawyers being held in Sydney, an American lawyer who turns out to have been born in Australia is killed. His body is discovered on the monorail and then the security guard who discovered the body is murdered.

There's quite a bit of human interest in the story too. Scobie Malone has two teenage children and his wife discovers she has breast cancer. Scobie Malone is a principled detective who believes in thorough investigative techniques.

A good story made even better by the excellent narration of Christian Rodska.Quite an intricate plot.

My rating: 4.6

In 2004 Cleary (1917-2010) won a Ned Kelly Award for best novel for the last of the Scobie Malone books DEGREES OF CONNECTION. He also won an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1975 for a non Malone novel PETER'S PENCE.

Jon Cleary was probably better known for the fact that he wrote THE SUNDOWNERS.

Wikipedia has a good listing of the Scobie Malone books with single sentence plot outlines.

Cleary once stated that, "There's more than a bit of me in Scobie. We both come from fighting Irish stock, we're both from Erskineville, the wrong side of the tracks, and both of us slugged our way up."
Malone was a Catholic family man with rigid principles who mostly
worked in Sydney, although his adventures occasionally took him
overseas. Other regular characters in the series included:

Malone's Dutch wife Lisa, who he first met working as Sir James Quentin's secretary in The High Commissioner. She was based on Cleary's wife Joy.

Malone's partner Sergeant Russ Clements, who eventually became head of Homicide.

In this first collection of three thrilling Harry Bosch stories, Michael
Connelly once again demonstrates that he is the greatest living
American crime writer.

In SUICIDE RUN, the apparent suicide of a
beautiful young starlet turns out to be much more sinister than it
seems.
In CIELO AZUL, Bosch is haunted by a long-ago closed case - the
murder of a teenage girl who was never identified. As her killer sits on
death row, Bosch tries one last time to get the answers he has sought
for years.
In ONE DOLLAR JACKPOT, Bosch works the murder of a
professional poker player whose skills have made her more than one
enemy.
Whether investigating a cold case or fresh blood, Bosch
relentlessly pursues his quarry, always on the lookout for the 'tell'.

My Take

This short story collection, quickly read, is an excellent reminder of what is so good about the Harry Bosch stories.

SUICIDE RUN is the perfect illustration of the fact that Harry Bosch always picks up more from a crime scene than others do. Great story.

CIELO AZUL is written in the first person, Harry Bosch's point of view. He shows how he never achieves closure if he can't give a murder victim a name. Again a great story.

ONE DOLLAR JACKPOT - this one is more a novella in length and structure. Harry Bosch has a gut feeling about this one but lacks proof. It demonstrates how often his gut feelings are right.

This is a really quick read, if you are looking for one, but still gives you some essential Harry Bosch.

Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team have a heavy work load with
several high-profile cases. First, a suicide bombing that was apparently
the work of a militant Islamist group.

Then, a gubernatorial candidate
is assassinated in broad daylight at a campaign rally. Could the cases
be related? To complicate Silva's investigation, a criminal with a very
bad grudge against the Chief Inspector has been released from prison and
is plotting ugly revenge.

My Take

First up, let me point out that I have reviewed an ARC of this book courtesy of the author but that it is now available for pre-order from Amazon. Publication date is Feb 19, 2013.

While I pointed out in my recent review of ALL YOURS by Claudia Pineiro that I felt I hadn't really learnt a lot about life in Argentina, the same cannot be said of PERFECT HATRED which is set mainly in Brazil. The author's awareness of politics and corruption, and the recent appearance of terrorism and jihad in Brazil all come through loud and clear, and the events and themes of PERFECT HATRED are set against that background.

“Just politics and favoritism is an understatement,” Arnaldo said, standing up. “In case you guys never noticed, politics and favoritism is what Brasilia is all about.”

The book begins with a bomb blast in Sao Paulo. A Muslim extremist detonates a bomb hidden in a baby carriage outside the American Consulate.

350 km to the south in Curitiba, Plinio Saldana, apparently squeaky clean, looks like a golden hope for the governorship of the state of Parana. When he is elected, it will signal the end of corruption and nepotism, and his election looks a cert:

The turnout that day was unprecedented. People had flocked into the city from all over the state. The Civil Police later estimated the size of the crowd to have been somewhere between 250 and 300 thousand—the largest ever to witness the assassination of a Brazilian politician

Seemingly without a qualm his wife Stella steps up as the new candidate, while Mario Silva and his team of federal cops try to work out how and why Plinio could have been assassinated by one of his own team.

Are the two events connected or are they both just signs of political disaffection in Brazil?

A third story joins the plot when wealthy gangster Muniz tries to ensure that he will not go to jail for crimes he has committed by arranging the assassination of both the public prosecutor responsible for the case against him, and the federal cop, Mario Silva, who saw him gun down an unarmed, penniless priest.

PERFECT HATRED is #6 in Gage's Mario Silva series. Do I have to read them in order I hear you ask? Well, I'd recommend that strategy although I realised today that I haven't read them all.

22 November 2012

The Crime Fiction Alphabet meme has been run 3 times in the past 4 years on this blog and has proved both challenging and popular.

Some contributors decided on a pattern for their posts.
For example Bill at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan decided he would put up 26 mystery author profiles of authors whose books he had read. Yesterday he wrote a summary post.

If you were a contributor to the Crime Fiction Alphabet for 2012 and have written a similar summary post (doesn't matter if you don't have all the letters covered) I invite you to add a link to your post on the Mr. Linky below.

Ines is convinced that every wife is bound to be betrayed one day, so
she is not surprised to find a note in her husband Ernesto’s briefcase
with a heart smeared in lipstick crossed by the words “All Yours” and
signed, “Your true love.”

She follows him to a park on a rainy
winter evening and witnesses a violent quarrel he has with another
woman. The woman collapses; Ernesto sinks her body in a nearby lake.
When Ernesto becomes a suspect in the case she provides him with an
alibi. After all, hatred can bring people together as urgently as love.
But Ernesto cannot bring his sexual adventures to an end, so Ines
concocts a plan for revenge from which there is no return.

Claudia Piñeiro,
formerly a journalist and playwright, is the author of literary crime
novels that are all bestsellers in Latin America and have been
translated into six languages. All Yours follows on the success of Thursday Night Widows, published in 2010 in the United States.

My Take

Set in Buenos Aires, this novel has an interesting structure: mostly the voice that we hear is Ines herself; but often there are phone conversations between Lali and her friend Paula which is how we know that Lali is in trouble; sometimes we are provided with material photocopied from a Spanish book on forensic practice found in Ines' bedside table. Most incidents are provided without author intervention or description.

Ines has nothing much to do all day except her housework so she keeps her house spic and span. It also means that she hasn't got much else to focus on apart from herself and Ernesto, providing of course you discount their daughter Lali, who is 17, finishing school, and in all sorts of trouble, but neither of her parents are aware of that.

Ines thinks she has now got Ernesto where she wants him, but then she discovers he is still leading a double life, and from that point on she can only see one way out.

Although I've read ALL YOURS for the South American category of the 2012 Global Reading Challenge it doesn't seem to me that I've learnt much about life in Buenos Aires. Having read this and THURSDAY NIGHT WIDOWS I can now see why Claudia Pineiro is such a popular Argentinian crime fiction writer. Her novels are unusual to say the least.